Irresistible
by Omniflyer
Summary: [PicFic] One of the Colonel's experiments goes awry, turning him into the centre of attention.  Happy birthday, Noirrac!
1. Irresistible

_We've all heard the saying before: a picture is world a thousand words. Well, Noi drew the picture, and now I want to give her a thousand words._

_Happy birthday, Noi. Here we go:  
_

* * *

It was one of the most uncommon, irregular, _unusual _sights known to man. Jade Curtiss, Colonel of the Malkuth army, famed Necromancer, He-of-the-eternal-grin-and-poker-face…

_Was gritting his teeth. Visibly._

Then again, perhaps that's not the best way to describe it. There was some manner of different expression on his face. His eyes were wider than usual, his mouth open and teeth bared, his visage _contorted _into a focused look of concentration. To be fair, though, it was quite understandable, considering that a massive crowd of people were bearing down on the Colonel, arms outstretched, lips puckering, hearts throbbing.

Jade Curtiss had become _irresistible._

It started innocently enough. Jade, as usual, wanted to experiment with various theories in the hopes of advancing Malkuth science and the military. Having seen Luke's power manifesting into something more controllable as they traveled to Passage Rings, his thoughts were slowly wandering toward small-scale hyperresonance.

Never a _full scale _one, of course; he knew all too well what a full-out hyperresonance could do… But here was a seven-year old replica, only coming into his own _now _as a person and a swordsman… and he was mastering hyperresonance. Perhaps there was a chance that he could make use of it, artificially…

And that was why, one warm morning while the whole party was taking time off from adventuring to relax in Grand Chokmah, Jade was just placing the finishing touches on a particularly elaborate-looking piece of fontech. Having asked Luke to arrive at his mansion shortly after ten, he was not at all surprised when the replica wandered in late at half past.

"Good afternoon, Luke," the Colonel hummed, extracting two long cables from the machine. "I was expecting you to arrive this morning, but I suppose the allure of sleep on the young is undeniable."

Luke blinked a few times. It was obvious he was still drowsy. "I didn't sleep in that late!" he said quickly, then cut himself off before his next sentence as a large yawn slipped between his lips. "Did I?" he wondered.

Jade merely shrugged. "Peony was going to invite us to lunch, but I told him we'd have to reschedule because you were busy dreaming about Tear."

The replica flushed furiously, frowning. "I wasn't…! That… Was I talking about my dreams in my sleep?"

"Not at all," the Colonel answered melodically, "but at least now I know you really were dreaming about her."

Luke was silent for a moment, then softly mumbled, "Just tell me what you need help with, Jade."

"I'd like you to grab onto these," he replied, passing Luke the two cables connected to the machine. "And try to feed a very small amount of hyperresonance into the machine through them."

"My hyperresonance?" echoed Luke, his head tilting slightly. "Why do you want me to use that?"

Easily and calmly, Jade slipped into his story. "I'd like to see how well your fonon control has developed, and see how well you can keep a hyperresonance under your own power."

"This machine will measure that?" Luke blinked.

"More or less," he answered, flipping a lever. "Go ahead and try."

A golden light began to glow in Luke's hands, and the cable connecting him to the fontech shimmered yellow. A large sphere in the centre of the cube-like machine, visible only between cracks in a skeleton frame and surrounding fontech wires, began to spin, turning yellow and then increasing to gold. The hairs on Jade's neck started to raise. He had long since learned to listen to his instincts, and his were starting to tell him something was going wrong.

"Luke," he snapped quickly, "stop!"

But Luke didn't stop; it was as though the fon machine was starting to draw on him, more and more, pulling hyperresonance from his body and making it harder for him to stop it. Luke was too frightened that letting go of the cable might allow a hyperresonance to slip off in a random direction, and so he held on, sustained the reaction.

Quite suddenly, the machine stopped pulling power and Luke cut himself off by dropping the cables; it was as though the sphere were _full _within its metallic cage. With a brilliant flash, the light began to expand. Steady streams were pouring out of the fon machine's cracks. Jade got a bad feeling about the light, then felt an even worse one: his fonons were being pulled into the sphere.

"Jade!" Luke screamed as he felt the fonic pull. His body shined bright with light for a moment, and then he collapsed, unconscious, on the ground.

Jade could already feel his body becoming lighter, but used his expertise in fonon management to erect a hasty barrier around himself. It wasn't a strong barrier, like the kind Natalia used to protect her allies, but it was enough to hold him together. If only he had been fast enough to protect Luke…

Tiny bolts of light were now collecting into the sphere, which was rising free of the fon machine and hovering as a self-contained ball of fonons above Jade's invention. Moments later, all was quiet. There were no more bolts, and the ball of fonons was spinning silently. Jade let down the barrier, feeling (quite correctly) that he was no longer being pulled on.

It happened in an instant. The ball of fonons shattered with the sound of breaking glass, bolts of fonons scattering in all directions, traveling through the walls and ceiling to get outside. Jade, after checking to make sure Luke would be all right, raced up the stairs, intent on following them. While the hyperresonance experiment had bombed disastrously, perhaps there was still something to be learned.

Jade got upstairs and, at a brisk walk, opened the door of his mansion, stepping outside into the light. There was a whole crowd of people outside. Everyone who they had met on their travels, from the God-Generals, to Frings and Cecille, to _his sister,_ were there.

Their eyes were closed, but they were all standing and breathing. They were, by all appearances, alive, just not moving… Something very strange was going on here…

* * *

_And that's a thousand words! Thanks for reading, and…_

_What? You want a conclusion?_

…_Very fussy people you are. All right, Noi, I suppose you're worth it._

_Carry on…_


	2. Happy Birthday, Noi!

Jade walked slowly over to his sister, nudging her standing body with his hand. She did not move in the slightest. He walked to a couple others, nudging Luke, nudging Guy, kicking Dist, nudging Peony… but none moved.

"What," he muttered to himself once he'd approached the end of the bodies, "is going on here?"

The second he spoke, they began to move. They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose; nor spake, nor moved their eyes! It had been strange, even in a _dream_, to have seen those dead men rise… But they were unfortunately not dead, nor did they need to rise (being already on their feet, as they were), nor was Jade dreaming!

"By Samuel," Jade muttered aloud, confusing even himself with his voice. He repeated, "What is going on here?"

Dozens of eyes opened at once, focusing on Jade. Half that number of bodies turned in his direction, and Jade started edging away from them. "Now, really…"

"_Colonel!_" Anise cried happily, throwing herself at him. Ordinarily, Jade would not have moved away, but _Dist and Guy _were making a similar motion! Jade backstepped away, but the whole crowd was now starting to move after him!

Jade turned and started sprinting, but the majority of the group was able to keep up with him. Largo picked up little Anise and threw her through the air, straight as an arrow (with, of course, a cry of "_Piercing __Tatlin!_"), which, due to her weight, was a very simple task. Anise caught the Colonel around the waist. Jade would have pushed her off, but despite the situation, he was reluctant to hurt her.

The added weight made it hard to run, though, and the ever-speedy Guy was the next to catch up, tackling him from behind and clinging to his arm, his lips puckered for a delusional kiss.

"Guy," Jade couldn't stop himself from complaining, "I'm neither one of Peony's rappigs nor Natalia!"

Luke was jumping from the other side, getting his arms around Jade's neck. Between the three of them, Jade was now suitably hampered, unable to get ahead of the crowd. And at this moment, when he had three people clinging to him, when there was a whole crowd of people on his tail…

_This _is when a look of concern showed up on his face.

Wise men have often wondered what it would take to make Colonel Jade Curtiss display an emotion other than his permanent grin on his face. The answer, it would seem, is the unconditional love of thirty people. And a Piercing Tatlin.

Speaking of which, at about this point, Jade heard Largo's booming voice cry about again, this time with the words, "Piercing Osborne!" and he could break Luke's grip just enough to see his sister flying in the air toward him. She landed on his back, forcing him to the ground, and wrapped him in a large hug while she snuggled his back with entirely more sibling love than Jade was looking for.

Now pinned on the ground with the whole crowd approaching, Jade tried to reason through why he was being run down.

Option 1: Anise was playing a huge practical joke on him.

Option 2: Peony was playing a huge practical joke on him.

Option 3: Anise and Peony were playing a huge practical joke on him.

Option 4: Luke's hyperresonance backfired throughout the world, the vibration amplified to that distance by the Passage Rings he had connected with. The hyperresonance vibrated with particular power with everyone Luke had come into close contact with, (including Luke, himself), copied their fonon resonance frequencies, and drew that data into the sphere, simply because it was the largest mass of fonons available and, of course, fonons attract. When the sphere eventually shattered, the fonons broke free, using the frequency data to assembled into their usual patterns, leaving replicas of everyone he knew; they were physically fine, but woozy and mentally shaken. He could only surmise that they were left as a blank slate, and would latch onto the first thing they saw, much like a newborn hatchling attaches to whatever it sees first as its mother. When he spoke, he got their attention at once, forcing them to look at him, thereby imprinting himself on them.

Or something like that. It was only a working theory.

This meant Jade had only moments to come up with a plan of action.

Option 1: Use fonic artes to free himself.

Option 2: Use strike artes to free himself.

Option 3: Hold a long interior ethical debate over why the first two plans that came to mind involved hurting images of almost everyone he cared about (it wouldn't get him out of this mess, but it bore thinking about…).

Option 4: Force this Luke to use his hyperresonance and hope that it would destabilize the replicas without harming him.

And if it failed, he'd take death over being hugged by Dist.

Jade grabbed the Luke's wrist and began to channel his own fonons into the replica. He was attempting to overload the replica's control over his power, and after a moment (wherein Dist got _entirely _too close for comfort), it worked. The Luke lost control over his hyperresonance, letting it go, but the Colonel was careful to allow him to only let some of it out. The power of seventh fonons flooded the street, Jade making sure Luke only fired his power directly upwards so as not to harm the town. The mass of fonons, however, was more than enough to destabilize the replicas, and slowly but surely, the replicas all faded into nothingness.

Jade sighed slowly, standing up on the empty street. He brushed the dust off his uniform and walked quickly back to his house. He reached the basement, where he found Luke standing up slowly beside the fon machine, which was, itself, depleted of energy.

"Jade?" Luke groaned. "Ow… what happened?"

"Your hyperresonance backfired," Jade said with a sigh. He had just realized he'd have to explain something, and that was always guaranteed to annoy him. "Acting through the passage rings, it called up the fonic frequencies of people you've been in contact with, creating a sort of… phantom replica of each of them just outside."

"A phantom replica? What did you do with them?" Luke asked.

"I didn't do anything," Jade shrugged. "They weren't stable replicas, so they dissipated of their own accord. I just hate to wait long enough."

"Oh," Luke said. "That sounds logical enough. Are you sure that was it?"

Jade smiled. "Why would it not be?"

"I don't know," the replica answered. "I have this sneaking suspicion that something more happened."

"That," Jade said cryptically, walking for the door, "is a secret I will carry to my grave. Now, be a good boy and destroy that infernal fon machine for me, will you? I need to have some words with Guy…"

The words, for the record, were, "Ground Dasher."

* * *

_Happy Birthday, Noi!_


End file.
